AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Transportation started offering higher pay to consultants this fall for project assistance, but DOT workers are frustrated about the change amid stalled contract talks with the state.
The consultant “wage limit” increasing from $50 to $85 an hour irked the Maine Service Employees Association because it came as the union and Gov. Janet Mills’ administration have been stuck in months of negotiations for a new two-year contract. They’re negotiating to replace a deal that expired in June covering 9,000 state workers, including DOT engineers and snow plow drivers, who were busy around the state during Monday’s snow storm.
MSEA-SEIU President Dean Staffieri said the two sides were meeting with a mediator later Tuesday, with the union also emphasizing Maine is projected to have $265 million in additional revenue through 2025.
State workers covered by other unions have already reached new contract agreements this year, but the Mills administration said this fall the state and MSEA remained “hundreds of millions of dollars apart.”
Neither side has shared specific numbers, but the union reportedly had pitched a $5 per hour plus additional 19-percent increase this year and 11-percent raise in 2024, after the state offered a cumulative 7-percent increase through 2025.
Staffieri said he understands the department has to ensure Maine’s transportation needs are met, but he disagreed with upping the consultant wage limit and said DOT workers are “really angry.”
“It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Staffieri said.
Department of Administrative and Financial Services spokesperson Sharon Huntley said the Mills administration has increased MSEA employee wages by nearly 14 percent since 2019, or 40 percent more than increases provided in the decade before the Democrat took office.
Mills and the Democratic-led Legislature have allocated up to $99 million for the state to negotiate with during collective bargaining, the largest amount ever proposed for bargaining, but lawmakers will need to reauthorize the money if the state and MSEA do not reach a deal by the end of this month.
“We remain firmly committed to providing a pay raise, we want MSEA to have a new contract and we continue to negotiate in good faith through mediation,” Huntley said.
How and why did the Maine DOT change its wage limit for consultants?
In April, the American Council of Engineering Companies of Maine requested the DOT eliminate its consultant wage limit. After DOT staff reviewed the request, Transportation Commissioner Bruce Van Note notified the president of the engineering trade group, Dan Diffin, in September of the plan to adjust, not end, the wage limit, per a letter MSEA obtained via an open records request and shared with the Bangor Daily News.
The $50-an-hour wage limit implemented in 1997 was unchanged until 2018, when, at the request of the trade group, the DOT allowed up to two people per contract — one project manager and one quality control engineer — to receive up to $62 an hour while other personnel remained at the $50 cap, Pelletier added.
Still, inflation and increased compensation for engineers overall meant $50 had “significantly diminished” since 1997, said Todd Pelletier, director of the DOT’s Bureau of Project Development. The only Northeast state with wage limits — New York — has revised its rate 12 times since 1997, and its transportation department had a $100 per hour limit as of January, Pelletier noted.
After using several methods to find an equivalent pay rate in today’s dollars, Maine’s DOT ultimately decided to boost the “consultant and subconsultant” wage limit to $85 an hour for new contracts starting Oct. 1 and increase it 2.5 percent annually starting in 2025. The department will reevaluate the limit and annual percentage increase every four years starting in 2028.
Consultants also have profit limits of 10 percent for planning and preconstruction engineering and 8 percent for construction inspections, with DOT leadership able to approve higher profits, per Pelletier’s memo.
The increased wage limit for consultants should limit the wage waiver requests, which totaled 137 in 2022, the DOT receives and help ensure, for example, that senior level engineers do not accomplish the bulk of “simple” projects, the bureau leader said.
Professional engineer costs also represent about 6 percent of total capital project costs, making the effect of the change “small,” Pelletier said.
Why is MSEA frustrated with consultant wages?
MSEA noted that past state studies found state workers are underpaid compared with public and private sector peers throughout Maine and New England, with a 2020 study showing an average 15-percent pay gap.
DOT transportation engineers and project managers also earn less than what consultants can earn, with a ”transportation engineer III” salary schedule ranging from $34.38 to $46.74 per hour, or roughly $71,500 to $97,200 annually.
MSEA said attracting and retaining state workers has been an issue, with one in six state jobs, or nearly 2,100, open, and, as of May, 20 to 38 transportation worker vacancies in each of the five DOT regions.
“I don’t think they’re looking to get $90 an hour, but holy smokes, they are so far from it,” Staffieri, the MSEA president, said. “I’ve got people who can’t afford to live in an apartment. It’s heartbreaking.”